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The UBC Let's Talk Science Partnership Program strives to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics literacy through the outreach efforts of members of the research community at the University of British Columbia. Our volunteers work with youth from elementary and secondary schools to ignite science excitement and share their knowledge with eager young minds.


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All Science Challenge a Success!


Almost 200 students from the city of Vancouver, and surrounding areas, came out to UBC's All Science Challenge

It's official! All Science Challenge at UBC was a great success! Congratulations to Tecumseh Elementary's Macc1; they earned first place during the Game Show competition.

Almost 200 students, from Vancouver and surrounding areas, went head-to-head to during the morning Game Show. Everyone had a great time during the afternoon's hands-on design challenges, including bridge building, mastering Morse code and electric circuits.

Thanks to all our LTS volunteers and the generous sponsors who made this event a success!


Brain Stimulating Activity

Julie Robillard, a PhD candidate in neuroscience has won the our first-ever activity contest for her fun, exciting “good for your brain” race.

As part of the activity, students are separated into small groups and are given a stack of images. They are then asked to separate the images into two piles – one of images that are “good for your brain” and one for those that are “bad for your brain”. The race is timed, and the first group to complete the task wins. Let’s Talk Science volunteers go over the winning group’s answers and invite other groups to compare and discuss the answers.

“I recently did this activity with a Grade 3 class. When the race was announced and the rules were described, you could see the kids were excited by the idea of a competition and were eager to get started,” says Julie. “Once the race was on, the kids were totally absorbed by the task. We went over the answers of the fastest group one at a time. Some were fairly obvious – junk food, sleep – but others definitely led to discussions. The game also sparked a very interesting debate over the value of videogames.”

The activity was themed around the brain in recognition of Brain Awareness Week (March 15 – 21 this year), as UBC’s Let’s Talk Science volunteers work with the Brain Research Centre to carry out neuroscience-themed classroom visits each spring.

For more information on Brain Awareness, please visit here.


Britannia Science Fair a success!
February 5, 2010


Over the past couple months, a brigade of graduate and undergraduate mentors have been working with high school students at Britannia Secondary. Volunteers helped guide students with their science fair projects with the program ending last Friday with the school science fair where students showcased some very impressive projects!

As well, congratulations to those mentors whose students will be advancing to the Vancouver District Science Fair next month! We all wish them good luck!
For pictures of the Britannia Fair and judging, please visit here

For pictures of a developing science fair project involving water quality along the Burrard inlet, check out pictures from Marius's mentorpod .

A big thank you to our army of volunteers taking part!!


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